The Quintessential Quintuplets, Eternal Hearts

Chapter Nine, The First Sister

-Rokuro-

As the fireworks event drew ever closer, Rokuro, Futaro, Raiha, and the quints walked around the festival, looking at all the stalls, one of the girls would disappear for no explained reason, then reappear with something in their hands. At one point, Ichika and Itsuki disappeared for a few minutes before walking back up to the group. Ichika seemed happy, but Itsuki was upset.

"That's not fair! That stall vendor gave you extra because he said you were pretty, but we have the same face and he didn't give me any!" Itsuki fumed, Rokuro laughed to himself a bit before looking over at Futaro who had the ugliest scowl on his face.

"Something wrong Futaro?" Rokuro asked.

"I could be using this time to study.." Futaro grumbled, making Rokuro laugh.

"Oh come on, it isn't that-" Rokuro stopped as he saw out of the corner of his eye, long pink hair heading in the direction behind him.

"No way.." He muttered, turning around and sprinting off, he heard Futaro call his name but he didn't care, he went as fast as he could through the crowd, popping out on a not so busy street. He looked around wildly but saw no sign of the person with the hair he had just seen.

"What the hell...I swear that was.." Rokuro trailed off, thinking back to the past, suddenly his body began to ache violently, making him drop to his knees.

"Ah...damnit..what do I.." he muttered, he tried to focus on things other than the past, Futaro, the quints, but it wasn't working. His vision began to blacken as he started to feel weak, the last thing he saw was a pair of feet running towards him, kneeling down next to him as he heard yelling. When he awoke, he was laying down on a bench, his head in something comfortable. He looked up and saw Yotsuba staring at him.

"You're awake Rokuro-san!" Yotsuba said happily, Rokuro sat up groggily and looked around.

"Uhn...what happened?" He muttered, noticing that Raiha was with them too, but the others were nowhere to be seen.

"After you ran off, Uesugi-san told me to chase after you because he was worried, and when I finally caught up to you, you were passed out on the floor! So I picked you up and found someplace to lay you down, and here we are!" Yotsuba explained.

"So...where are the others?" Rokuro questioned.

"Oh..we got separated. The fireworks have already started too, this is the first year we haven't been together for the fireworks." Yotsuba said sadly.

"Oh yea I meant to ask, why were you all so fired up to see the fireworks?" Rokuro said as he looked over at her.

"Oh, well it's one of the few things we always did with our mother. Mom loved the fireworks, so we'd always come to see them. Now that she's gone...we always come to see them, to remember her." Yotsuba said, Rokuro's eyes widened and he felt like he had been shaken to his core, he clenched his fist and turned around.

"I'll be back, I'm gonna go find the others." He said with a shaky voice.

"Huh? You don't have to, it would be impossible to find us all before the fireworks end." Yotsuba said, but Rokuro shook his head.

"I'm not going to let it be my fault that you all are separated, I won't do that to you!" Rokuro declared before he sprinted off into the crowd, as he did he realized how crowded it really was, he began to push past people, not holding back at all. People were flung aside until he found a small break in the crowd, he looked around and noticed a recognizable yukata shuffling through the crowd.

"Itsuki-tan!" Rokuro called, reaching out and grabbing her shoulder, she turned to him and he noticed she had tears in her eyes.

"Itsuki-tan!? What's wrong?" He questioned, to his surprise, she hugged him tightly.